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Wambat is holding a weekly raffle giveaway of Steam games to promote the Fourth Age Total War mod and his Let's Play campaign!

* New maps for Super Early, High and Late, with new and exclusive provinces for each era! (including the Balearics and Iceland!)
* Finely balanced versions of all three periods!
* Over 170 new units, with exclusive units for each era. These include Mounted Handgunners, Korean Mongol units, Norman Knights, Order Foot Knights, Landsknechts, Welsh Longbowmen, Anatolian Infantry, New Knightly Orders, Svean Axemen, Iranian Ghulams, Chinese Fire Archers, Orebite Spearmen, Gothic Men At Arms and Siculo-Muslim Archers!
* 27 new factions added, with exclusive ones in each era! These include the Lithuanians, Welsh, Scots, Irish, Latin States, Almoravids, Georgians, Bulgarians, Cumans, Ilkhanate, Flemish, Hospitallers, Serbians and Wallachians!
* 7 new agents, including Pagan exclusive ones, a Heretic Priest, Jewish Master Merchant and Qadis!
* Many new buildings, including a Heretic Church, Camel Train, Synagogue, Axesmith and Law Courts!
* A new composite bow has been added, which will give the Eastern archers the advantage they need!
* New factional titles, including ‘Royal Magistrates’, ‘Rabbis’, 'Lord Executioners', 'Champion of the Joust' and leaders of themed Heretical cults. Assign them at your peril!
* Adjustments to original unit stats and changes to original faction AI.
* The removal of certain land bridges!
* Many new graphics, including new unit shields and flags for the new factions!
* New Trade goods - Slaves, Horses, Cattle and more!
* Over a hundred new heroes added, all real!
* Brand new names for the new factions, including Princess names!
* New Loading Screen!
* Deadpage Coords for each era!
* An Easy Auto-Install!
* Plus much, much more!

The 2.1 patch amends:

- Those empty handed units
- Novgorod and Celtic priests portrait errors in Early and High
- Egyptian Synagogue problem
- The 'could not translate' message when a Crusade base (Chapter House) is destroyed
- Ships not coming out in the seas where the ports were
- Teutonic Knights/Chapter House problem
- Few more

VERY IMPORTANT - Ensure that you install it directly into your 'Total War' folder. The default installation is set for your 'Medieval - Total War' folder. This is wrong - ensure that it is installed into your 'Total War' folder, the one 'Medieval - Total War' can actually be found in.

It is highly recommended that you do it on a fresh install as it will now unfortunately harm your current game.

YOU CAN ONLY GET ONE PERIOD'S DEADPAGE COORDS TO WORK AT A TIME. BEFORE YOU START THE GAME, GO INTO 'TEXTURES/MEN', AND WHATEVER PERIOD YOU WANT TO USE MAKE SURE ITS CALLED JUST 'DEADPAGE COORDS'. WHILST NOT IN USE, MAKE SURE THAT THE OTHER TWO PERIODS ARE FRONTED BY THEIR FIRST NAME FOR EASE, LIKE I HAVE DONE WITH HIGH AND LATE.

THERE IS NO GLORIOUS ACHIEVEMENT MODE IN THIS MOD - IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO DO GIVEN THE THREE SEPARATE MAPS FOR EACH PERIOD.

UPDATE:

Gregori99 has very kindly made a comprehensive Unit Guide for the mod, which you can download from here:

Maybe I&#39;m dumb, but this line on the ReadMe isn&#39;t really clear to me:

Make a copy of the &#39;Vikings&#39; portraits folder and put it into the actual &#39;Vikings&#39; portraits folder.
Call it &#39;Vikings&#39;. Also, make a copy of the &#39;Pagan&#39; portraits and call it &#39;Pagan2&#39;. Copy that into the main &#39;Vikings&#39; portraits folder also.

In Campmap/Portraits you should see Catholic, Orthodox, Muslim, Pagan and Vikings.

Copy Pagan and call it Pagan2. Then put Pagan2 into the Vikings folder.

If you already have a folder called Vikings in the Vikings folder I don&#39;t think you need to do it again. Start the game and see if the Celtic factions, Novgorod, the Norse and the Kievans have working portraits. If not, come back to me.

Hey thanks for your help - I had it all correct the first time but I didn&#39;t know if it was right until you told me. haha. anyway......

Here are some thoughts/suggestions:

I really like all the new factions plus their flags and such. Makes the game a lot more violent than just fighting rebels.

The only real big problem with the mod is basically the big problem of MTW itself: The peasant/archer/spearmen horde. Factions just build up tons of these and you rarely get to see the new cool units half the time.

My suggestion on how to fix this came from various people in the discussions in the WesMod thread. He implemented these ideas and eventually took them further, but anyway:

1. Make the Muster Field necessary for production of peasants, NOT just the fort. Just import it from Viking Invasion. Muster Field has LOW priority to build and peasants also have LOW priority. This way peasants are available but they certainly are a lot more rare. Most of the time you only see them in revolts/crusades and such and thats how it should be.

2. The more drastic of changes. Bring Early out of 400 AD. The game starts in 1086 and the map should reflect this. Currently in MTW the whole world is rather primitive and the AI&#39;s have a hard time building up to actually make units. A solution to this is:

Almost every province on the map gets a fort to start with. Capital provinces get Keeps/Castles and Constantinople gets a Citadel. Most territories should have at least one basic troop producing building like a spearmaker, bowyer, or town guard. Most "civilized" coastal provinces should start with ports and even shipbuilders in capitols.

This sounds drastic, but believe me it works. I can send you my CampMap file for Early if you want to take a look at it, but basically what it runs down to is that it gives the Ai an extra kick in the pants to get their men started, and they thus field real troops instead of the usual rabble we see.

Anyway, that was long, but I&#39;m just trying to pop suggestions to make this mod the best there is. Here are some minor issues:

1. A lot of spelling/grammar mistakes in the Unit Descriptions. A lot of "There" being used when it should be "they&#39;re" or "their". No biggie but just thought to point it out.

2. England needs help. I played as them for a Campaign and while I survived, I know for a fact the AI wouldn&#39;t have. I fought a LOT of very tough battles against both the Scots and the Welsh. The Welsh invaded in Year 2 and the Scots about 4 years later. I got lucky and wiped out the whole Welsh royal family and thus their faction in a hopeless battle but that really was just luck.

Maybe the English should get a few more troops at the start, or if you don&#39;t implement my "Bring em out of the Dark Ages" idea you should at least toss a fort in Northumbria and maybe Mercia to help them out. As it is I&#39;ve seen England repeatedly wiped out within the first 20 years when I&#39;ve done tests playing as the Irish and just observing. Maybe the Welsh King should have less stars or something.

3. Maybe in the ReadMe include a detailed list of changes, such as building requirements and such for the new units you added in.

4. Not a real bad bug, but I noticed it nonetheless. I killed the Navarrese King and the message said "The Navarrese King has been captured and executed. His heir will take control of the Bohemians." I guess maybe some fooling in the text file would help that.

5. Maybe in the Faction Selection screen for the new factions you could write a SMALL description about them or if not that just a list of the unique units they can get and whether they can Crusade or not etc.

That&#39;s about it for now, but I love your mod. Can&#39;t wait for the full version.

I like it a lot. Its a of fun just to fight battles with the new factions and see their flags and units out there and stuff.

Another thing:

The HRE might need some heavy strengthening. I&#39;ve done 5 or 6 campaign tests and every time it seems they get ganged up on (not that this doesn&#39;t happen in the regular game) but with so many factions it kills them quite quickly. Typically every one of their neighbors just attacks them.

I figure with the HRE, maybe just give them some more quality troops, but not LOTS of troops. This way they can defend themselves better but not exactly go out and squash all of their nieghbors. Like some Feudal Men at Arms and more Swabians here and there.

Excellent job Blind King. The game&#39;s a lot harder now. I can see you&#39;ve put a lot of work into this. However like all mods the corpses are missing from the field. Has anybody solved this problem yet as it certainly spoils the fun especially when you&#39;ve had a 20 minute bridge battle and at the end the bridge is empty of the dead. Me no like

Sorry man,but when i try to play it,everything is ok until i press end year.Comes up a small window where it says some sort of error,i press space and the window goes away,but the game freezes on thinking.
Done some custom battles thought,excellent work

Hey I&#39;m back with more ideas. I don&#39;t have classes Monday Wednesday and Friday so I have nothing to do all day.

Anyway........

I think some of the newer factions are too poor. An essential cause of England always being wiped out is that the Scots and the Welsh have nothing to do. Both territories are dirt poor and the King and his heirs alone take up all the country&#39;s income, so they have to attack England without even building up a decent army. I think maybe we could up Wales-Scotland-Ireland&#39;s initial farming income or give Scotland a gold mine or something. Another area that is problematic is Navarre. They are so poor the only troops they can build are their princes.

I figure if the mod limits the number of factions that maybe we could get rid of one of the Iberian factions like Navarre or Valencia and make Lithuania into a faction. Lithuania is quite a rich province and historically they were very independent.

Basically to sum up, a lot of the little guys need some help (Aragon could use some trade goods and a boat or two to start) so they don&#39;t get steamed over. I&#39;ve modded your Units file myself and lowered the support costs heavily of all bodyguard units. This way certain factions don&#39;t breed themselves to death - it always happened in the original game with the Danes and with all these little guys all over it seems half of them are doomed from the start. I know it sounds like I&#39;m criticizing your mod, but I&#39;m really criticizing the orignal MTW game. Its just with a little more modding some of these issues can be alleviated.

Some small things:

1. Maybe El Cid shouldn&#39;t be a King. I&#39;m kind of iffy on Valencia as a faction even but El Cid was never really in charge of it at this point in time. I think he gained it in 1094. But either way, maybe he should just be a general since he was never really a true King. Plus this way he won&#39;t die off so early because of the 56 bug. Either way, he really was more a mercenary knight than a king which is why he was a good choice for rebels, but its your mod so its up to you.

2. HRE strengthening: I&#39;ve been thinking a lot about this and based on discussions with other mods. One thing that came up was how poor many of the German&#39;s provinces are. Historically the Rhine river area was very agriculturally powerful and the game should reflect this. This would make the game more realistic and (more importantly) more balanced for the Germans. Consequently, for my game I upped Franconia&#39;s farming income and gave them a trade good to make them one of those "Farming Powerhouses" which I think the Germans should have.

3. Another thing I thought of was to give the poor Wales-Scot-Irish factions the Viking Era bodyguard units for Early but mod them to have very low support costs. This way no one else is really affected by it and it also helps them save money and takes some of the pressure off of England.

4. We&#39;ve got a lot of new units - Maybe mod certain provinces to produce +1 Valor versions of some of them.

That&#39;s all for now.

And about the Dead Bodies. Now I know little about this myself, but maybe you could talk to some of the guys who are doing the Lord of the Rings mod. It seems that they got bodies to appear for their new units. While the bodies definitely do not look anything like the units (just dead peasants for all the Rohan guys) having some sort of dead body is still a plus. Not really a big big deal but it is quite satisfying to see the piles of corpses.

Also - you made mention in another thread about never having used the Gnome Unit Modifier. I highly suggest you try it. Before I got it I barely ever touched the Units file because it was so messy and complicated - now I tweak and test things practically every day. Basically all the Gnome thingie does is organizes the Unit file into a REALLY easy to read spreadsheet where making additions is 100x simpler. I tried to load up your Units file with it but for some reason it didn&#39;t work. It could be because you made it a Read-Only file or something like that. I know when I modded it manually I couldn&#39;t save my work in the original file but had to make a new one and then stash yours somewhere else.

Yeah, that was an essay of a post. Oh well. Tryin&#39; to just throw things out there and see if any ideas catch you. If you want to see my CampMap files with the certain buildings on them, just let me know and I&#39;ll email it to you.

Lithuania are in late but for early they were not independent as a force. El Cid seized Valencia the city in 1094, but the provence and the surrounding areas were fought over with the almoravids, El Cids armies and the castilians, with El cid eventually gaining control. He was very much a king and fought successfully against the Castilians and Almoravids, plus many independent neighbours.

Historically Wales, Ireland and Scotland were not rich countries but i will be giving them a better income.

I have given honour bonus for some of my new units. When you click on the info for a provence it will show one unit bonus but there are more one in some provences. You will see as you play the game more.

I don&#39;t use the Gnome editor and i never will. Just my own opinion. I like doing it my own way.

I think i have made a fun, enjoyable BETA which can be difficult and insane in a good way The full releases will be better of course.

I notice I can train Order troops now. While this is kind of good maybe we should have limits on them - they&#39;ll be too powerful.

Currently all I need for Chiv Foot Knights is a Swordsmith Workshop and a Chapter House. Thats pretty low requirements. Same thing for Order Foot being only needed a spearmakers workshop and a Chapter House. These troops are really powerful and I think this might unbalance.

My suggestions: (Can use some/all whatever)

1. Make Chapter Houses unique. This way you can only pump them out of one province.

2. Up the requirements majorly. Maybe require more religious buildings like at least a Reliquary or maybe even the Cathedral (then you can have non-unique Chapter Houses)

3. Maybe make them only trainable in certain areas:
Prussia for Teutonics
Ile De France for Templars
Rhodes for Hospitallers
Holy Land for all Orders (Antioch Jerusalem Tripoli Edessa)

It just seems that I&#39;ll be pumping these guys out a little too easily and that they shouldn&#39;t be "major parts" of forces - they should really be rare. Finding large armies of Crusader troops fighting each other all over Europe seems kind of odd.

I think the best method is to really make them only Crusades and only in the Holy Land/Rhodes/Prussia. Just my thoughts though.

Well i&#39;m going to bring up the requirements for units such as ordercrossbows and orderfoot. The order cavalry and some foot will be exclusive to crusades. This is only for early. In high i want the crusader states to train all orders( Except the teutonic) and it&#39;s impossible( as far as i know) to have one faction being able to train a unit and others only getting them in Crusades.

I don&#39;t know that much about modding, but I figure a workaround would be to make it so you need a certain kind of building to train them and maybe that building is only available to the Crusader States. Like a "Holy Land Chapter House" or whatever.

And I can think of problems all day

My campaign is going pretty well. Been slaughtering Frenchies in droves which is always fun.

Quote[/b] ]I don&#39;t know that much about modding, but I figure a workaround would be to make it so you need a certain kind of building to train them and maybe that building is only available to the Crusader States. Like a "Holy Land Chapter House" or whatever.

No you misunderstood me. I said I can&#39;t let the Crusader States train them AND only let the other factions get them via Crusades. If I set them to buildable, all the factions associated with them will also be able to build them.

And if you don&#39;t know that much about modding, then you can&#39;t really appreciate just how difficult it is. Please bear that in mind

Well, the only other workaround I can think of is just make copies of all the Crusader units and call them something like "Outremer Order Footsoldiers" and "Outremer Templars" or whatever.

Make them exactly the same as regular Order Foot soldiers with the same stats, picture, and body type etc and let them be built by the Crusader States. Then keep the regular Order Foot as Crusade-Only units for the Catholics.

Sorry if I&#39;m getting annoying but I think that one might work haha.

Hi boys. I was wandering, how is the mod going? There hasn&#39;t been that much feedback, and i&#39;d just like to know if people are enjoying it or it sucks. I know the mod is a bit big but its great fun and i know England and HRE have it tough but all those problems will be resolved in the full release.

Hey could you please split the mod up to smaller .zip files, 40mbs is a bit daunting to my old 56k, especially as it cuts out after 2 hours.

Or you could do it in the next version.
Thank you

And so Lord Woodhouse, barged into the Kings bedchambers with waders and a fishing pole (possibly drunk) and said; My Liege, the Rivers are so high that you need waders to stay above them My ancestor to his Highness Edward IV